by Philip Eade
But the affable Londoner's approachability is striking. "He's a real person," says one colleague. You are left in no doubt about his prodigious energy ("I try to do without sleep," he says), yet he also has the charm and unforced small talk to put even couch potatoes at ease.
Isaacs says he learned "the importance of being a good man" from his father, the founder of the General Portfolio life insurance company, which he later sold to the French insurer GAN. Then he stumbled on an industry which he adores: shortly after leaving school he was on holiday with his parents in America where he met a partner of Smith Brothers, who later invited him to visit the London Stock Exchange: "It was like an awakening," he recalls.
"I've always worked very hard because I've enjoyed doing it," he says. Work now includes an endless round of breakfasts and dinners with his staff. Whenever there's an office cocktail party, he makes sure he introduces himself to as many people as possible. "The way he operates is by inclusion," says one of his subordinates. "People feel like they're being listened to. He believes that if you push that down the chain, it becomes a way of life. He thinks that is how you create a culture and an understanding of what's going on."
In his meteoric career, Isaacs has taken some hard decisions, notably in 1996 when he chose to leave Goldman Sachs (where he headed the European derivatives business) for Lehman. Already a rising star, he would almost certainly have made partner at Goldman before too long, but that wasn't enough. "He wanted position," says a colleague. "He could have stayed at Goldman and made a heck of a lot of money. But the kind of seat he sits in now just wasn't available."
Isaacs arrived at his present job last October just when Lehman was beginning to make waves in the region, in particular having advised Olivetti in its takeover of Telecom Italia. Europe's share of Lehman's global revenues rose to 38% in the third quarter of 1999, compared with an average of between 20% to 25% in previous years. Over the next two years, Isaacs plans to add another 1,000 staff across the bank's seven European offices and double the revenue by the end of 2002.
Born in 1964 in London, Isaacs was sent away at 13 to board at Bearwood College, the Royal Merchant Navy school. He was, he says, "not a particularly distinguished scholar", and he remembers the whole experience as "basically fairly miserable".
At 18 he joined the back office of Smith Brothers (later Smith New Court) to do checking, before becoming a blue button and eventually an options trader during the mid 1980s bull run. He was in his element: "It was such a new business in Europe that there were no experts. You ended up with a lot of responsibility at each of the pitches. Age wasn't a barrier. It was an advantage - a bit like e-commerce today. I learned a lot about human psychology and how to respond to different environments. I'll probably never have so much fun in my life again."
After the crash in 1987, Isaacs moved to Kleinwort Benson, where he spent the next 18 months trading options. In 1989, he was persuaded by a friend to go and see Goldman Sachs. When he walked into the office of option theorist Fisher Black in New York, Black was holding his keyboard like a violin. Swiveling his chair, he asked: "So, what do you know about options?"
"Not as much as you, sir."
"Good answer," said Black.
Isaacs was hired to start Goldman Sachs's European derivatives business from London. He went "back to school", attending maths lessons three evenings a week, but the business was soon thriving. By 1995, he was part of the senior management of a 40-man department.
Several friends left to join Lehman Brothers and persuaded him to have breakfast with Lehman's chairman Richard Fuld who impressed him with his "thoughtful and compelling plan" for competing with the more established American banks in Europe. "All subsequent meetings were completely consistent with that," he recalls. He joined the firm as co-chief operating officer for the equity business in Europe, and subsequently held the position of global head of equity derivatives and head of the firm's overall equities activities in Europe. In March 1999 he was appointed chief operating officer for Lehman Brothers Europe, responsible for spearheading the firm's equity, fixed income and investment banking activities throughout Europe and the Middle East. He took over as chief executive for Europe in October, following the retirement of Bruce Lakefield.
Isaacs says he is basically a "very simple person" with "the same friends I had 20 years ago". The two loves of his life, he says are "my family and Lehman Brothers".
